


most people, or how jennifer blake started to spiral

by counterheist



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, derek hale: morality pet, gleeful evil jblake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2013-08-26
Packaged: 2017-12-24 16:59:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/942354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counterheist/pseuds/counterheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Derek Hale is your morality compass you know you have some serious problems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	most people, or how jennifer blake started to spiral

The teaching gig frustrates her because teenagers are slightly lesser than most people as a rule, and Jennifer's students are incompetent almost without exception. 

Still.

It’s necessary.

—

She usually starts each lesson with a series of questions. Can you tell me about the differences between similes and metaphors? Which of you did the summer reading? Why did your parents ever decide to keep you?

Mostly she elects to phrase them nicely, and mostly she elects to internalize the ones she really wants to say. Her students may be hormonal idiots, but telling them that won’t do anything more than bring negative attention to herself. Jennifer hates this job, but it’s where she is right now, so she has to grin and go forward with it even when she would much rather stride into fifteen separate homes and drag fifteen separate victims out into the woods and get it all over with.

Jennifer used to have so much more patience than this.

She tries to meditate on the memory of it while she leans against her desk’s smooth edge and watches her students take a quiz on chapters two and three. When the notes begin to start flowing up and down the aisles she clears her throat, once, and mentions offhanded to the repaired windows that this is a closed-book test, as well as closed-peer and closed-internet, and discussion time will resume as soon as everyone’s done filling out their answer sheets. None of the little bastards even so much as flush because they have no shame.

Her next test is going to be impossible, and stabbing each red failing mark next to each name in her class roster is going to feel fantastic.

Except she can’t call that much attention to herself.

Damn.

Lydia Martin asks for permission to get some water, and Jennifer idly thinks about not granting it. Permission. She thinks about deducting points from each of the werewolves who glance up and gaze at Martin as she disappears out the classroom door.

Maybe some other time.

—

Derek’s preference for off-brand corn flakes upsets her on a fundamental level, but Jennifer eats them with a smile, wearing his least-bloody shirt, every time she ends up staying over. Off-brand corn flakes and 1% milk, which; she could understand 2% milk, even if she doesn’t like the heavy way it sticks to her tongue. 2% milk is a regular thing. Fat-free milk is a regular thing, and also the right thing. 1% milk is a pathetic half step between two normal choices, and she judges him so much for it every time she opens his fridge.

“Morning,” she says, spoon dripping in the air.

He nods back to her and reaches around her to get at the bowls.

—

Back in college, before she got a pack of her own to support, but after she began her emissary training, Jennifer took two semesters of physics. She did all right at Newtonian mechanics, and even better at electromagnetism. Over a decade later, she remembers none of it, but she raises her hand anyway when the principal asks if anyone can fill in for Adrian Harris.

He nods and hands her a folder full of Harris’s lesson plans because she manages to get her arm in the air the fastest, and that is how the Beacon Hills education system works. 

No one has been able to contact Harris for weeks, the principal continues to speak, but they don’t want to worry the students. The police will handle it. It’s no more suspicious than any of the other disappearances or deaths that have been happening in Beacon Hills – that have always happened in Beacon Hills – and no one will benefit from putting all their lives on pause just because another faculty member might be dead. The students are here to learn.

Jennifer likes his way of thinking. Maybe when she’s done with all of this she’ll be a principal. There will be less face time with the students, a major plus, and she’ll be able to rationalize the disappearance of her staff without anyone questioning her motives. It’s possible she’s just found her life’s calling.

—

The first fight she breaks up is between werewolves. 

Apparently Danny says something to Scott, who says something to the hallway in general, but Isaac hears it and decides it’s more of a suggestion than a philosophical question, so when Stiles tells him to keep it in his gloves he goes charging down the hallway and punches Aiden away from the front of Lydia’s locker, which was, in fact, actually Allison’s locker, which is now heavily dented, which Allison does not approve of at all. Somewhere between ten and fifteen students all try to relate this information to Jennifer at once. She’s only ever met maybe half of them, and fewer than that are of any importance to her. It’s a clusterfuck until Lydia Martin stomps away and one of the twins who have taken to following Kali around tries to go after her. Then it’s even _more_ of a clusterfuck.

Jennifer wants to give all of them detention, by which she means she wants to string them all up on the rack. She has one of those in the little home office of her rented house, where there had once originally been a set of heavy wooden bookshelves. She could do it. 

Stiles Stilinski tries to go after Martin as well, and accidentally trips into the mess of werewolf brawl rolling all over the floor. The squeal he makes reminds her of a balloon popping, and suddenly Jennifer is able to find her center again. She has her focus. She has about twenty detention slips, and the teacher on duty today is Finstock.

Jennifer’s living in an after-school special, but at least she can see the comedy. No one else can see the comedy, which, really, makes it even better.

—

Derek insists on walking her to her car when she stays late after school. He has this odd idea that, if unwatched, she won’t go home, and will instead be mauled to death inside her classroom. It is obnoxious and stifling, and if this were a real relationship she would set him very, very straight, very, very quickly. As it stands, she is forced to plan all of her ritual sacrifices at home in her little office, where she has to kick the radiator to get it to go, and sometimes the oven never does get hot enough to cook frozen pizzas.

The staff lounge at BHHS has a brand new toaster oven, and three dry erase walls, which are very, very convenient when she needs to write out her declensions and map energy lines.

If this were a real relationship, Jennifer would be so done with the ridiculously pleased expression he gets every time he watches her drive out of the parking lot before dusk falls.

But it’s not.

Instead, she kisses him and thanks him for caring so much about her.

What a fucking moron.

—

Most people, in Jennifer’s opinion, underestimate how much power words have over them. 

“Can anyone tell me what an aphorism is?” she asks one Wednesday, because she can. None of them have noticed that her lesson plans have little consistency and even less to do with the syllabus she handed out on the first day. Points to no one for observation, but she isn’t terribly surprised that they aren’t suspicious. She has all of them under her own spell, the stupid kids, and it’s one of her favorites.

Words.

_Jennifer Blake, M.F.A._

Scott McCall’s hand shoots up, as it usually does when she breaks out the ten-dollar words. It’s cute that he tries so hard. Jennifer prizes persistence. It makes winning that much more satisfying.

The class devolves into her students calling out examples of sayings they know until the bell finally rings. She lets them leave as long as they promise to come back the next day with five hundred words on the meaning of ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’. So she’s a little self-indulgent. Who isn’t? At this point in her life, Jennifer Blake has earned all the indulgence she wants. She has the pen _and_ the sword, and she’s going to win.

But first— “Mister Greenberg,” she calls into the mess of scurrying plaid and designer handbags, “can I talk to you for a minute?”

Before Jennifer can win, she has to deal with the failures that surround her. 

“Um.”

The stack of essays on the left edge of her desk still need grading, but by her right arm sits a little pile already marked up in red. Grabbing the top three stapled sheets, she tries to look like a caring educator. “Jared,” she says, placing the paper into his reluctant, sweaty hands, “once I enter these grades into the computer system you’re going to be failing my class.” She pauses. “I’m worried about you. Is anything wrong?”

Jared Greenberg babbles about something, but Jennifer doesn’t listen because her purse beeps twice. The low note’s followed by a high in quick succession. She has a new text. 

Damn.

“When I was your age,” she starts during what is probably an appropriate break in the conversation. The kid’s eyes begin to glaze, and Jennifer fights off rolling hers. To think she used to have to rely on herbs and Latin to get someone so brain dead so fast. Almost dying has taught her more than living ever did. She reaches into her purse, snags her phone, and reads as she talks. She talks, and talks, and wants to snap a pencil in half once she unlocks the screen.

_hey_

As far as plans go, the one she’s devised is fairly solid. Five types of people, five types of power, energy based on the land itself; easier than catering to the whims of a pack of ingrates day in and day out. And the sex is great. The sex is really great. Everything outside of the sex has started to wear on her patience.

_are you free_

He doesn’t even use _punctuation_ and it’s driving her insane. But Jennifer has to answer, because Derek has to believe that she always will. She’s the lighting rod grounding him from the storm, as far as he needs to know, and lightning rods text back promptly and politely. Or. Yes. Something like that. It’s not like she was an English major.

“Miss Blake?”

She stops mid-anecdote about cats. Jennifer likes cats. She feels a certain kinship with them. Cats are all right. "Yes?"

"I have to go to cross-country practice now," Greenberg mumbles, "Um. I can. Can I do extra credit, or something?"

Extra credit is for the weak, but Jennifer needs to get home and clean off her garrotes so she lets the kid go with promises to re-write his essay, and this time read the book first.

—

Their dates are very short and to the point. Jennifer pretends not to notice when Derek follows her places, and occasionally engineers a meeting when he’s unprepared just to keep him off balance. Derek follows her around looking soulful, and conflicted, until she tells him it isn’t his fault. She never explains what ‘it’ is. He never asks. He’s a little stupid for never asking, but he’s a lot stupid for a lot of other things – and he’s nice to look at – so Jennifer lets it go.

They go mini golfing, one weekend, because Derek thinks she likes that kind of thing and is feeling insecure in his ability to hold a relationship. And, well, that's valid. If Jennifer were in this for her own sake, not that revenge is anything terribly different, she'd give him a seven out of ten: six for his chest, and one for his face. And maybe two for his arms, but the negative two from his ability to be an effective boyfriend cancels those out. His fears are entirely valid, and the only appeal he has is the physical. If he didn’t make such a good decoy Jennifer would probably follow the grand Beacon Hills tradition and go after some jailbait to get what she wants.

 _Scott McCall_ ’s texts use punctuation. It’s tempting.

But she _is_ in this for her revenge, first thing above all else, and Derek does fine as a distraction. So she lets him think every single thing he does is a ten. The way he loses every single fight he ever lands himself in is very manly and impressive, can’t he see how impressed she is? She’s so impressed it hurts.

( _Not intervening hurts. Being associated with him as he bleeds out all over the floor hurts. But this is necessary too._ )

Derek brings up going out to the old putting green on one of those mornings, standing shirtless and wary in his own kitchen. He’s a little bit wary everywhere he goes, except when he’s around her, which clearly means he’s nowhere near as wary as he needs to be. If Jennifer were a lesser woman she’d needle him about that _constantly_. She has to remind herself not to when he suggests going to the movies after and says a superhero film like that’s even an option.

—

She throws away his off-brand cornflakes, and puts nonfat milk in his fridge.

She is not sorry.

—

At the next staff meeting, the band teacher and the principal spend the entire time pushing the discussion back to the idea of a memorial concert. They think it would be good for morale, after the series of recent deaths. It would be a good way to help the students heal; it would be the best way short of bringing in more therapists.

Jennifer doesn’t look at Morrell. She has no idea whether Morrell looks at her. They know about each other, vaguely, all emissaries do. But all emissaries keep their cards so close to their chests that it barely matters that Morrell knows Jennifer used to – maybe still – helps a pack. That’s all Jennifer knew about Morrell, too, before Kali sliced Jennifer’s face in half and left her to die.

“We’re going to need someone to post advertisements,” the principal says.

The biology teacher raises her hand.

“And someone to let the parents know.”

The sophomore math teacher.

“Someone to choose the music.”

The band teacher and Finstock glare at each other from across the room, hands raised. Finstock raises his other hand as well. The rest of the room fights rolling their eyes in one collective swoop, and about half manage it.

“And I’d like to ask someone to patrol the hallways while the concert is going on,” the principal finishes, “to keep an eye out against anything suspicious. I can’t believe this is something I’m actually saying, but we don’t need any more deaths on this campus.”

The staff buzzes in agreement. The head of the English department knocks twice on the flat surface of the desk she’s sitting at. The rest of the department nods, uneasy, and Jennifer stops herself from reminding them all that fake wood grain over hard plastic doesn’t count. Instead she volunteers to hand out programs, and considers whether to make her next move before, after, or during the concert.

If the students aren’t as hopeless today as they usually are, she’ll even think about doing the actual sacrificing in the woods _behind_ campus.

—

Jennifer decides to kill the rest before the concert. This has been taking long enough as it is, and she only has a few more days until the eclipse. That time will need to involve developing and practicing her new power, and maybe getting Derek ready to kill people for her. She’s not sure about that part, to be honest. Every time Derek mentions something about killing or death when she’s near, he usually looks like he’s about to start crying.

It’s the most unattractive thing she’s ever seen, and she wants to kick him and tell him to nut up or shut up. She doesn’t.

She holds him.

It’s _necessary_.

—

She only ends up killing the one.

—

And poisoning Derek’s sister. 

But that’s technically an accident. No one in her right mind roots around in the garbage for boxes of generic cereal that have been sitting there, ripped apart and bound in mistletoe in a blinding rage because cornflakes are disgusting and generic cornflakes are _worse_ , at least have the decency to get Kellog’s— it’s Cora’s own fault. Cora poisons herself.

—

Jennifer kills the one, and Cora poisons herself.

—

Fine, the _two_ , she only ends up killing the two, and Cora’s a little bit Jennifer’s fault, and it’s all going to shit. Jennifer’s behind, and if she’s not careful she’ll have to do a rush job on the rest of the sacrifices or risk losing her window of opportunity. She’ll risk losing Derek’s trust in her.

( _Which, that doesn’t matter as much as the sacrifices, but she never likes it when things deviate from the plan. That’s it._ )

Jennifer regrets not starting with the philosophers as she stalks towards her classroom in the dark, and begins to re-chart her plans in her head. Instead of a castle here, a knight there. Instead of leading with her aces, bluffing all the way until she has to show her cards.

—

_hey_

_Yes?_

_coras sick_

_Oh no! Is there anything I can do to help?_

_no but thanks_

_Are you sure? I can pick something up?_

_its fine i just wont be around_

_stay safe_

—

She doesn’t kill the sheriff at the school, knows she won’t at the tree, and sighs as she returns her key to her super. Most of the furniture came with the house, and she’s set fire to the rest. The storm will put out the embers.

So this is how it’s going to be.

**Author's Note:**

> I became much more fond of this pairing once Jennifer got an actual personality, and in my heart will always exist a cracky canon divergence wherein she somehow finds redemption and sticks around as the chaotic ~~neutral~~ good part of the pack. And it'd be like:
> 
> D: jennifer what did you do  
> J: Hey, he _could_ have been the bad guy. I did us a _favor_.  
>  D: jenn. no. >: ' (  
> J: Oh my god, fine. It's not like a _actually_ killed one this time, he just has a few more gashes than he used to and is severely poisoned.


End file.
